I enjoyed reading your reply, Romulus, but I have to disagree. I believe the Qantas ad has missed, and missed badly. Maybe that was the idea? Management can say "look - we tried - but those nasty unions had done too much damage."

I found the Qantas ad frustrating, because it never "engaged" me.

The people in the ad that were looking up, could have been from virtually anywhere. They never really identified themselves as "Australian". Even at the end, you only associate them as Australian because they make up part of a flying kangaroo tail. I found myself saying "Uh-huh. And? Is that all?" There is no engagement. There is no story. Just a confused mish mash of strangers looking up.

It wasn't until the end, that you realise that it was for Qantas. And even then, I'm pretty sure that there are quite a few "y gen" that wouldn't identify the tail as being Qantas.

I found the music "funereal", rather than "aspirational". Don't get me wrong here, I didn't mind Daniel's effort, it was just wrong for the ad.

The idea of putting Australians names on the side of a Qantas aeroplane is a good one IMHO. It gives "ownership" to Aussies. Great idea! Do it bigger - get names in terminals, on trucks, wherever they need to put them so that they can attract people back to admire their name on something Qantas! They need to market it better though, with advertising that is relevant.

The American ad however, told me a story. It engaged me. It made me want to watch. Hell, I NEEDED to watch it. And I knew what they were talking about. I understood. I received the message.

I'm still confused about the message the Qantas ad was trying to convey. Were they trying to tell me that Qantas can be anywhere but still Australian? Were they trying to tell me to look up? Were they trying to tell me to fly Qantas? What?

I would also add that whilst airline employees enjoy advertising which shows themselves and their company, Joe Public does too. Being an airline employee is probably one of the most sought after jobs out there. It does attract attention from all walks of life. Until recently, Qantas was THE employer of choice. Everyone wanted to work at Qantas. Now? Not so much. If the public believes that Qantas is no longer a good employer, then they won't want to fly with Qantas either. Qantas therefore needs to re-establish the idea that it is a wonderful employer, with happy, engaged employees. That will help attract Australians back to their airline.

Qantas' major problem at this time is that whilst Australian's are very patriotic and they want Qantas, they will not pay for it. They will not put their money where their mouth is. And Qantas need to target this, or they will wither and die. And at the moment, this is where it seems our national carrier is heading, especially with advertising like this.

The spilled orange cart is just one example of that, they're going to take you back to a simpler time, a more noble time, when people just did stuff like that as opposed to teh current high pressure environment we work in.

For me, any new advertising for Qantas is good, about time, and a pleasant change from the Jetstar only story... just that erh, maybe they could have picked a different coloured fruit (less sensitive) to spill all over the road..... water melons possibly? Also I don't quite get the shot of the person wheeling the lawn clippings out, as if, that's the last thing you do before you fly Qantas....

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I'm still confused about the message the Qantas ad was trying to convey. Were they trying to tell me that Qantas can be anywhere but still Australian? Were they trying to tell me to look up? Were they trying to tell me to fly Qantas? What?

Well said mate.... I have heard similar comments along the same lines from other observers of this campaign....

I would have loved to be there when the creative guys at Publicis Mojo pitched the concept for approval..... must have been very deep and meaningful...

Found this interesting take on the campaign which makes some good points..

You’re the reason we fly – A Hit or Miss? Yesterday, after much anticipation Qantas aired its first instalment to the ‘Your’re the reason we fly’ campaign on national television. The ad, led by Publicis Mojo featured a new spin to the brand positioning statement, to modernise its appeal to the mass and put customers at the forefront of their campaign. In addition to this the campaign also aggressively underpins the positioning by changing its slogan from ‘Spirit of Australia’ to ‘Spirit of Australian’s’, in which Qantas describes as the tale of two letters.

The first notable element in the ad is the composition of the tune played in the background. The soundtrack titled ‘Atlas’ by Daniel Johns, devours a chilling and eerie state preparing the audience to witness something special, setting off an emotional state for viewers. Staying true to its positioning, the ad primarily displays Australian’s from the cities, countries and coast from the view of sitting in an A380 airbus aircraft, hovering over these destinations. The focal point of the ad is that real people (Australian’s) of all ages are collectively depicted as the one reason Qantas fly.

Amnesia, Razorfish and Adshel the marketing agencies that worked together with the Qantas Executive Marketing Manager, Lewis Pullen to create the first initial phase of the concept; generating a buzz to build up to the ad campaign by effectively integrating both offline and online mediums to achieve a mass effect and response. As Pullen describes it, “the most multi-channel, multi-dimensional campaigns ever launched in Australia”. Prior to the commercial release of the ad, Qantas had implemented an app that operated on an Adsheel screens in Sydney’s Town Hall stations that interconnected commuters mobile devices to have their picture and name featured on the screen. To this, Qantas had also cleverly crafted and utilised ‘cause-related marketing’ for people to participate – that is a generous donation of $5 to Mission Australia, for each photo uploaded to the value amounting to $100,000. This philanthropy appeal is seen as the key driver for its unanticipated response rate. As a result the campaign saw more than 16,000 people download the app over a two week period, attracted over 60,000 entries, generating more than 200,000 unique visits to their website and raised $100,000 for Mission Australia in response to the first day of release of the campaign.

From an advertising perspective, the concept of putting customers at the forefront of their campaign is expressive and meaningful, however the message was executed poorly. Not to mention the stinkingly similar campaign previously adopted by KLM – Royal Dutch Airlines Tile & Inspire and the Share A Coke campaign. The campaign attempts to exploit an emotional appeal in reconnecting with its customers, rather than opting a rational and symbolic reason why customers fly, which is flawed thinking. Qantas fails to recognise that their customers are still displeased with their service; thus attempting to create emotive appeals without any improvement to the brand or service is puffery to consumer perception. A better alternative would be to reach its displeased customers on a rational level focusing on the fundamentals in re-establishing its service quality, reliability and responsiveness. As such the campaign fails to address the significant reason why ‘their customers fly’, instead stating that they are the reason Qantas fly. This ultimately shifts the focus and direction of the message, which no longer attempts to adopt a customer centric point of view.

On another level, nationalism of the brand was also overlooked in the ad. No attempts have been made to emphasise anything about the brand as an iconic and symbolic figure. Customers perceive the brand as Australia’s national carrier, which is the number one reason why customers choose Qantas.

The distinguishing red and white kangaroo logo is the most valuable asset and equity of the company yet ignores this critical standing point as a unique selling proposition; unlike its previous campaign ‘I Still Call Australia Home’ that resonated with Australian’s on a patriot and symbolic parallel. As a national flag carrier the purpose should have focused on the character of the nation in a collective state as one, rather than in an individual basis of the characters of Australians. With this in mind it can be argued whether any real value or substance for the brand was communicated?

In contrast, the use of social media prior to the commercial release of the ad was cleverly used in a way to fight back against the social media war against Qantas, which enabled negative content about the brand to be filtered out in favour of the buzz and digital media generated in the current campaign. However, this strategy will at best achieve short-term gain as overtime any marketing power inherited in the current ad will wear of and the voice of previously dissatisfied consumers will prevail in the digital space. As one marketer puts it:

‘People don’t care about what you say about your products. They want to know what other people say about your products and they care about experiences more than the product themselves’

Sage Lewis

Thus, any customer engagement is the result of influencing the public to take part in the current campaign, rather than providing any long-term value towards maintaining its viability as Australia’s national carrier.Ultimately, no real investment has been made in re-establishing the brand and rectifying its issues; as the campaign is merely a skimpy attempt to notch up earnings for the festive season ahead.

Background

Meanwhile, this slogan has been done before with an airline in the USA a few years back.... hope history doesn't repeat....

it's about peace and nourishment of the soul in these troubled times where the media are spending a huge amount of effort convincing us how hard life is despite the fact that it generally isn't (for Australians).

Are they advertising a commune or a transport company?

Seriously, thanks for the insight and you obviously know your stuff with this so I'll ask the question...what about product? Even with an esoteric ad, shouldn't you still show someone using the product somewhere? Even weirdo beer ads have someone drinking the beer at some point.

I get the feeling that the people who like this ad are the enlightened advertsing types who know a lot about the medium, a bit like people who appreciate Jackson Pollock paintings or Steven Berkoff plays which leave the rest of the population either and/or . Does that make us unenlightened? Probably, but so are the majority of airline customers, art gallery visitors and theatre goers. Most people just aren't all that sophisticated. Are they pitching their ad to the several thousand advertising experts who 'get' it or the remaining millions who don't?

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The soundtrack titled ‘Atlas’ by Daniel Johns, devours a chilling and eerie state preparing the audience to witness something special, setting off an emotional state for viewers.

In their opinion. In mine (and it's subjective but so is theirs) it's a bland dirge.

Balance - fair enough. I don't think the ad worked either, it was a good effort that didn't succeed.

I wonder if they have a new marketing manager at Qantas? One of the banes of my life used to be whenever a new one popped along because that always meant they'd change perfectly good stuff just to make their "imprint".

Clear examples are the "rebranding" exercises that were all the rage a few years back. After claiming the need to refresh and reinvent the company in order to reinvigorate it the marketers rushed around spending shedloads of cash. The usual result was confusion. From memory Lee Iococca got it right (IMO) when he said "we've spent 50 years building this brand and you just want to throw that away" or words to that effect.

To me that's what Qantas have done with this campaign. They're looking to make a break with the past, they want to move with their customers but they didn't quite hit it. The Schoolkids choir became an icon, for all his commercial success the new one is just insipid and doesn't stand out from the pack, there is no "cut through".

For much of the rest I guess we agree to disagree, I certainly accept you were engaged by the American style ad but that's because you see yourself as one of them, you are the insider. And with the exception of immediately post 9/11 that's where that type d thing belongs - internal feelgood promos. The general public doesn't care about any of that, they care about what you will do for them and how you will make them feel.

Either way I suspect the new Qantas ads will be refreshed in 12-18 months or so. Unlike a relatively anonymous choir a solo artist or readily identifiable group has a much shorter shelf life as brand representative before they get stale. Children never wear out, you just need new footage every couple of years and you're done.

From an advertising perspective, the concept of putting customers at the forefront of their campaign is expressive and meaningful, however the message was executed poorly.

This I totally agree with.

As soon as you start seeing quotes like "As Pullen describes it, “the most multi-channel, multi-dimensional campaigns ever launched in Australia”." you have to start asking if Pullen's ego or the marketing teams' collective ego has overridden any commercial focus. I'd lay pretty short odds that Pullen has an agency background not an in house company background, the choir and "Australia home" campaigns were more the type of campaign in house people run when they are in charge, this latest one involves rock stars and tries to show just how clever the marketing people are with the result the message is nowhere near as powerful but from a creative perspective they can wank on about symbolism and immersed messaging and all sorts of BS when they meet their mates for Friday night drinks.

Seriously, there was massive recognition of the "Australia Home" theme, it didn't focus on Peter Allen, it evolved and brought in kids choirs and some spectacular footage of what Qantas can deliver you to. Note that use of "what" not "where". Where is simply about a destination that you get dropped off at, what is what Qantas are going to do for you, how they will make you feel better etc. Instantly recognisable no matter where you hear it QANTAS used to have an ad campaign that would actually draw people from other rooms to watch adverts as soon as they heard the music so they could fantasise about the latest offering.

This one doesn't do that, it sounds just like the rest of the background noise.

it's about peace and nourishment of the soul in these troubled times where the media are spending a huge amount of effort convincing us how hard life is despite the fact that it generally isn't (for Australians).

Are they advertising a commune or a transport company?

They are a luxury goods company (in the target market of this ad) and need to advertise accordingly. They don't do backpackers on price, they do comfort and luxury and experience for more affluent types. If backpackers fly them then great, but they don't want anything to do with price wars. They're defintiely NOT selling a commodity like transport, they are selling something much higher in value and are charging accordingly.

They are selling how they make you feel so good that your precious holiday experience you may have saved many years for will be maximised with them.

That's where Dixon started and Joyce delivered even more major damage to Qantas, the public has been confused for some time about what QF stands for. This appears to be an attempt to get back some of that prestige feeling. Not sure it will be successful but I suspect that's what they're trying to do.

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Originally Posted by worrals

Seriously, thanks for the insight and you obviously know your stuff with this so I'll ask the question...what about product? Even with an esoteric ad, shouldn't you still show someone using the product somewhere? Even weirdo beer ads have someone drinking the beer at some point.

No probs.

Let's try the Socratic method way of answering this:

What do YOU think the product is?

My thoughts are:

It certainly ISN'T transport. It ISN'T aircraft or technical experience or any of that hard tangible stuff.

It is emotive, happiness and joy and hope for something the punter can focus on and look forward to experiencing, and Qantas want to be part of that whole process, not just the transport bit.

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Originally Posted by worrals

I get the feeling that the people who like this ad are the enlightened advertsing types who know a lot about the medium, a bit like people who appreciate Jackson Pollock paintings or Steven Berkoff plays which leave the rest of the population either and/or . Does that make us unenlightened? Probably, but so are the majority of airline customers, art gallery visitors and theatre goers. Most people just aren't all that sophisticated. Are they pitching their ad to the several thousand advertising experts who 'get' it or the remaining millions who don't?

I think you're spot on. They've overdelivered on "clever" at the expense of "immediacy" and "cut through". That's one of the problems with marketing campaign, you spend so long working through the process of developing them that you get so familiar with your output that you forget it has to be consumed and understood in 30 second repeats rather than the hours, days and weeks you have had to understand it during the development process.

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Originally Posted by worrals

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The soundtrack titled ‘Atlas’ by Daniel Johns, devours a chilling and eerie state preparing the audience to witness something special, setting off an emotional state for viewers.

In their opinion. In mine (and it's subjective but so is theirs) it's a bland dirge.

Ad types love spending money engaging stars to work in their campaigns, they get to talk and hobnob etc.

The question on this one is what value does this person bring to your brand and brand values? As far as I can tell the answer is zero in this case.

Of course advertising is always about selling the emotion not the product, but it needs to be clear to the punters that the emotions follow on from the particular product. Otherwise the message gets murky and I think that's the problem with this ad. Any ad has to say 'this is our product and it will make you happy'. The reason for the happiness depends on the product (maybe it's a Big Mac, one of the most successfully advertised products of the 20th century, maybe it's a Jaguar with a supermodel/Daniel Craig in the passenger seat) but the message doesn't change. I don't see that message in this ad. What to Qantas do and why will they make me happy? The ad doesn't answer that, in fact it doesn't even ask the question.

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They are a luxury goods company (in the target market of this ad) and need to advertise accordingly.

Agree entirely, but it's a luxury transport product, not (for example) a luxury drink product or a car product. I don't think the ad makes that clear at all; even if it looks premium, you're left wondering if a top of the range leather sofa is going to float down from the sky or if everyone's suddenly going to march into David Jones.

I think an effective ad needs to specify at some point what the luxury product actually is. It 's like advertising a top of the line Aston Martin and never showing the car. AFAIK this never happens in luxury car ads, and I think that's for good reason. Even companies who target the $300,000 vehicle market make sure they show the $300,000 vehicle. In a lot of cases I reckon luxury goods advertisements are actually more conservative and formulaic than cheaper equivalents, with some alcohol brands being the notable exceptions. The big fashion houses (who of course make most of their money on non-premium products like perfume), the big jewellers, the premium unit developments and other AFR magazine regulars tend to stick to very conservative ads. Possibly the luxury market actually prefers that.

I guess other examples of luxury transport would be top level cruises and escorted travel, scenic train trips, trips to Antarctica and similar. The advertising for those products tends to follow the well worn theme of 'here's our swanky seats/cabin that will get you to these amazing places, surrounded by wealthy, attractive people like you believe yourself to be.' This ad doesn't do that; in fact it's wall to wall bogans doing bogan things. Nor does it use the classic 'humour/irony' mix that's been effective for a number of price sensitive or bogan targeted products such as Freedom Air, BCF or the RACQ.

As for the Socratic question, like most of us on here it's really impossible for me to answer, because I work in the dreaded Industry. My perception of an airline (any airline) is radically different from that of the average punter and coloured by inside info and personal biases. I agree 100% that people are confused about what Qantas is at the moment. Like most of us I have the battle scars from a thousand barbeque discussions with non aviation people to prove it, particularly since the grounding. However, I don't think this ad gets anywhere close to helping people answer the question. Maybe they don't know what the product is.

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The question on this one is what value does this person bring to your brand and brand values? As far as I can tell the answer is zero in this case.

Agreed. Who wants to be Daniel Johns? Half the country won't have heard of him and the other half has forgotten him. We're not talking Nicole Kidman here. With a few notable exceptions like Jimmy Barnes, people who were in famous bands don't usually transcend the band and gain their own individual fame. I agree that it was another 'let's impress our friends who also work in advertising' move on the part of the creators.

Mind you the Screaming Jets did an awesome job for Impulse's inaugral flight many moons ago...

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I took on some marketing postgrad courses to try and understand what it is they do and how they think...

Brave. I've got a great book on Afro-Carribean Voodoo which may be of more assistance...lots more fun too.

if I was out of the country and saw this ad, on the right day, say away from your family at Christmas time, (many of you on here know what that is about..) it would make me very homesick and probably a bit emotional, that "Aussie lifestyle thing" we all miss when we are away..... from this perspective, (outside looking in or Internationally focused for Australians,) and to be fair, in this respect, the ad's a winner!

...that "Aussie lifestyle thing" we all miss when we are away..... from this perspective, (outside looking in or Internationally focused for Australians) to be fair, the ad's a winner in that respect!

Watch five minutes of the Shire or Being Lara Bingle and you'll feel better. Honestly.

Actually it plays better the second time around; I think the main problem is the voice over. If they'd cut to a few nice 747 livery/crew/ big swanky seat shots at that point it probably would have worked.

On the second viewing the main message is that Qantas Gets You Home, which isn't a bad one. I just think that some shots of exotic places where you might be homesick would have added to the mix. 'Go whoop it up/ cut some business deals in Honkers and we'll pick up the pieces' sort of thing.

After all, if you're watching telly in Australia, you're already home. It's a bit like an ad for expats, rather than a 'go fly places' for the bored majority sitting At Home. Maybe the designer is overseas and missing his Mum?